Collection Development Framework

The California Digital Library (CDL) is a "co-library"
of the University of California whose primary collection responsibility
is to develop electronic content and make it available to all faculty
and students. Some of the electronic content will be licensed and acquired
from commercial sources, and some will be produced by digitizing University
collections. The same three considerations used to develop library collections
in the ten UC campus libraries guide collection development for the
CDL:

the user base

the programs that are to be supported

the resources available to support those users and programs

In the case of the CDL, the resources available
are electronic resources, which support common needs of programs and
users on the nine campuses of the University. In May 1996, the University
of California Libraries Collection Development Committee endorsed the
Principles for Acquiring and Licensing Information in Digital Formats
Among those principles, the following are particularly important for
building the collections of the CDL:

Conventional collection development criteria are paramount and
will be applied consistently across formats, including digital resources.

Principal considerations include:

Establishing a coherent rationale for the acquisition of each
resource, meeting faculty and student information needs

Providing orderly access and guidance to the digital resources,
and integrating them into library service programs

Ensuring that the advantages of the digital resource are significant
enough to justify its selection in digital format.

Balance must be maintained among:

Disciplines

Information formats (i.e., printed, audio-visual, and electronic
media have different but equally essential purposes and audiences).

Instructional and research tools (i.e., a balance of material
types such as reference, abstracting/indexing, full-text)

Different needs of each campus

Priority will be given to digital format acquisition of those
resources that offer economies of scale by benefiting the most faculty
and students (locally and/or system-wide). Documented faculty support
and demand increases the priority for acquisition.

Priority will be given to digital resources when they offer
significant added value over print equivalents in such ways as:

more timely availability

more extensive content

greater functionality such as the ability to invoke linkages to
local and/or related resources

greater access because they can be delivered universally, rapidly,
remotely, at any time

improved resource sharing due to the ubiquity of digital resources

ease of archiving, replacing, and preserving

UC should retain authority for selecting and deselecting materials
(content and format) and sound selection decisions should not be compromised
by provider-defined packages or linkages between print and digital
products.

A digital collection must contain a sufficient critical mass
to evaluate its utility and to justify its selection.

With respect to the collections of the CDL, the following principles
are also important:

Collections focus on disciplines in which a substantial quantity
of electronic content is available and on user groups willing and
able to accept such content.

The CDL collections include both those that support undergraduate
instruction and those that support faculty research.

Collection activities encourage societies with high impact titles
to distribute their materials electronically.

Electronic materials are selected that increase access to the
installed base of UC Library collections and build on the investments
already made by the University in digital resources.

Collections will be distributed more or less evenly among the
Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Area Studies, Science & Technology
and Instructional Support so as to maintain a balance between broad
subject categories.

For each discipline, the needed breadth and critical mass of
electronic material should be provided. Material may be licensed or
acquired from commercial sources or digitized from the University
owned collections.

Priority is given to UC faculty-created resources.

Selection of material within a specific discipline should follow
the relevant principles noted above. While material is selected based
on the needs of a particular discipline, it may also be necessary
in some cases to develop models for creating and accessing particular
material types (e.g. numeric files, images) across disciplines. These
models may need to be in place before such material can be added to
the collection, and advisory groups to develop those models should
be appointed by the CDL.

Lower priority will be assigned to materials where access is
already adequate, where there is no systemwide cost advantage, where
there is comparable open-access material, or to materials that present
technical difficulties.

Publication by a non-profit organization and/or represents an
innovative, sustainable business and access model.

Resources should be evaluated according to CDL licensing and technical standards.